Twisted

by Lynda La Plante

  Lane nodded. ‘Mr Henshaw’s company drew up a will for Mrs Fulford that stated the contents, house and assets all go to Amy should she die, and nothing was left to Marcus.’

  ‘But if Amy was deceased, also Lena, Daddy could get the lot . . . could be a motive?’ Reid added, and there were nods of agreement round the room.

  Next it was the turn of the officers who had made enquiries along the Fulham Road, at Fulham Broadway Tube station and the bus depot. Due to the football match at Chelsea’s Stamford Bridge stadium, extra buses had been laid on. They had questioned drivers around the time it was believed Amy might have caught a bus, but no one was able to identify her from the photographs. CCTV from all the buses and Tube station entrances had been seized and was still being viewed, but as yet there were no sightings of Amy. They had also seized CCTV from various shops along Amy’s possible route, but none of the shop owners could recall her.

  Barbara Burrows raised her hand and announced that there was one possible sighting she had discovered from her enquiries. Everyone sat up to listen with interest.

  ‘It’s from a security camera from a private house at the end of Harwood Road and taken on the Saturday afternoon Amy went missing. It being close to Fulham Road and the football ground, drunken fans going to or leaving a match sometimes cause damage to cars parked in the residents’ bays outside their houses, and some cars have been broken into. They installed the camera facing towards the street and their Mercedes as a security measure and to identify the culprits.’

  Reid leaned forward impatiently. ‘Good work, but is it ready for us to see, Barbara?’ he asked brusquely.

  ‘Yes, sir,’ she said and all eyes turned to the screen as Barbara inserted the disc into the DVD player.

  Although the picture was colour it was poor-quality and a rather grainy image appeared on the large screen. Numerous groups of men wearing bobble hats and scarves were seen passing by on their way to the match. Eventually a slim young girl came into shot and the room fell silent as Barbara hit pause. It was almost too good to be true as the girl stopped right beside the Mercedes and everyone in the room agreed it was Amy Fulford. Now they could see exactly what she was wearing on top of the maroon jumper. It was a bomber jacket in dark leather with a mock fur collar. She wore a mini-skirt, not leggings as they had first believed, and knee-high boots. It was obvious that she must have changed again before leaving the Newmans’ house. Her head was bent down and it looked as if she was texting someone on her mobile. She also had a small shoulder bag and as Barbara pressed play they watched as she put the mobile into her bag and zipped it closed. Suddenly there was a clear shot of her face as she tossed her long blonde hair back, before continuing on her way out of camera shot.

  Reid asked Barbara to play the footage again and commented that it was a very important sighting, which they could run on Crime Night and which might produce fresh witnesses.

  Another group of officers had been assigned to seize and view CCTV from around Marble Arch and Park Lane. Numerous CCTV and top-level security cameras were positioned in this prestigious area, such as by the Dorchester, the Grosvenor and Marriott hotels and the exclusive car sales garages. There was the possibility Amy had caught a bus as far as Park Lane and then walked to Green Street, but as yet they had not discovered any footage or found anyone who recalled seeing her.

  It had been a long day for everyone, and most of them had been on foot for nearly all of it. Reid stood up and said he had made some developments that made for uncomfortable hearing but might possibly shed a different light on the inquiry. According to all the statements from family and staff, their missing girl was described as shy, studious, very naïve and a model teenager with no hang-ups or boyfriends. Reid now elaborated on what had come to light in Marcus Fulford’s flat, from the pornographic videos and magazines to the unpleasant peephole into her father’s bedroom.

  The possibility that their missing girl was sexually active, or even being sexually abused, could no longer be ignored.

  Chapter 14

  Lena had made some toast and heated a bowl of tomato soup for herself and Marcus and carried the tray into the TV room. He looked up briefly from the sofa before skimming over the final section of the journal, which consisted of lists and lists of recipes.

  ‘They can’t read this,’ he said, depressed and shaken.

  She put the tray down but he didn’t feel like eating as the contents of the journal had made him sick to his stomach. She sat on the floor and drew her bowl close, dipping the toast into it and sucking at it.

  ‘Jesus Christ, Lena, I can’t believe what she has written, it’s disgusting, but I can understand why you thought what you did. You have to believe me, I swear before God that I never had any indication of any of this, it’s appalling – what on earth was going through her mind to write this stuff?’

  ‘She’s very unflattering about me, about everyone, and I honestly never suspected, never had a clue what she was really feeling. It’s as if she hates me and then there’s what she implies went on with you. How could we both be so incapable of not getting so much as a hint about what she’s been feeling? She’s only fifteen but it’s written like a hardened vicious woman.’

  ‘Don’t do that,’ he snapped.

  ‘Do what?’

  ‘Slurp your fucking soup – you always did it, dipping your toast and sucking it like a kid.’

  ‘If that is all you have to get uptight about you need to get your act together, because that detective found that pornographic filth at your flat and he is going to have just as many suspicions about you as I had if he reads the journal. I mean, you can tell me that you never had any idea what she was doing, but it doesn’t read that way, and I believe you, I do, I honestly do, but whether or not DI Reid will—’

  ‘For God’s sake!’ He jumped up, exasperated.

  ‘Marcus, it reads like you were letting her watch your antics in the bedroom, that you knew she was either in the room or looking through the peephole they’ve found – she’s certainly very graphic, and it was no wonder I thought you’d enjoyed it.’

  ‘Don’t do this to me, Lena.’ Marcus held himself completely rigid. ‘I swear on my life I had no idea and you implying that I did disgusts me. Please don’t make me feel even worse than I do already. You have to trust me, I need you to trust me, because you and I have to try and fathom out what went wrong, why she’s written this filth.’

  Lena finished her soup, and calmly raised her head to meet his eyes. ‘What went wrong is that you left us. That’s the root of our daughter’s problems.’

  ‘You never had enough time for her – don’t just claim it was because I left, you know we had not been getting along for a long time before I moved out. It was your decision to send her to boarding school, not mine – you were so intent on your business you were hardly ever at home.’

  Lena glared and snapped that she was forced to travel and spend days away finding all the people for her companies. The fact she was worried about not being at home for Amy and had to make other arrangements had not been just her decision, they had all discussed it, all three of them. Marcus sighed; it was the same old record being played and he couldn’t stand much more of it. He got up and strode to the door.

  ‘Where are you going?’

  ‘Lena, I didn’t come here to argue with you; you are doing my head in going over old ground. Amy is missing, for God’s sake, and making untrue accusations about me isn’t helping. We were together for just over seventeen years and most of that time we were okay.’

  ‘You think?’

  ‘What?’

  She stood up and placed her soup bowl onto the tray.

  ‘I said, you think it was okay? Well, for your information it was not okay and it wasn’t for a very long time, but you know what?’

  ‘I’m sure you’ll enlighten me,’ he said and sighed.

  ‘I just got too tired to end it before you did. I should have kicked you out ten years ago, but I didn’t because I a
lways hoped that maybe, just maybe, you would get your act together. I put up with you and all your failed attempts at making a living, I always felt as if I had two kids, you and Amy. I truly believed as long as I could keep bailing you out from one disaster after another and keep you happy we’d stay together, not for me, but for her sake, because you could do no wrong in her eyes.’

  She picked up the tray and carried it to the door. She paused beside him.

  ‘You know, maybe what really happened, Amy began to see you for what you are, the rose-tinted glasses broke, because she had to take in the way you were living, and I think all you have been waiting for was that meeting with your nasty toad of a lawyer. If you think I am going to move out of this house that I have paid for, that I have furnished, that I have covered the mortgage on from day one, you are mistaken. You’ve never paid one cent, so if you think you are going to screw money out of me in a settlement, make me pay you bloody alimony for the rest of your miserable life, you have another think coming.’

  She passed him with the tray, the soup spilling from his untouched bowl, she was shaking with such anger. She went into the kitchen and hurled the tray onto the draining board. She thought he would follow, but when he didn’t appear she took down another bottle of wine and uncorked it, getting out clean glasses as she slowly calmed herself down.

  Marcus was watching a video, an old one of a holiday they had taken together in Tuscany, and he was sitting with his legs tucked under him on the sofa. She placed the wine and glasses onto the coffee table in front of him. He gave a glum smile as she sat beside him.

  ‘Long forgotten good times,’ he said quietly as she poured them both a fresh glass of wine. Together they continued to watch one video after another, neither speaking, simply taking in the past when they had been happy. Lena changed tapes as he drank and asked if they should watch the most recent ones to see if he also picked up how different Amy appeared.

  ‘Do you think something happened to her, something neither of us knew about, because the way she’s behaving is so strange, she looks sullen, she was always such fun, but here she seems to be so angry, constantly avoiding the camera.’

  Marcus shrugged, turned to Lena and reached for her hand.

  ‘I’ve been thinking, maybe until we know what is going on I should move back in here.’

  ‘But what if she tries to contact you at the flat?’

  ‘She always calls me on my mobile and I have it with me. I just think that it would be better for us to show a united front. What do you think?’

  Lena sipped her wine, unsure about his suggestion, and yet to have him with her was a comfort. When the video ended, she didn’t feel like watching any more.

  She leaned closer to him. ‘I honestly don’t know, Marcus. I mean, I have to admit I feel in a sort of limbo because I can’t really comprehend that Amy would have just taken off. The longer it is, the worse I fear about what might have happened to her. What do you think?’

  ‘I feel the same, that’s why I’m suggesting I stay here – I mean in the guest room obviously – but at least we can be here for each other.’

  He got up, turned the videotape off, ejecting it and stacking it along with the others, then returned to sit close to her on the sofa. ‘The worst scenario is she was abducted by someone, but you know Amy wouldn’t get into a stranger’s car. I mean, we always made sure she knew never to accept a lift from anyone she didn’t know.’

  ‘What if it was someone she knew?’ she said quietly.

  ‘So taking that on board, she accepted a lift with someone or maybe had even arranged with whoever it was to go with them, then wouldn’t she have taken her overnight bag? It was left with the Newmans, their daughter took it back to school with her on the Sunday.’

  ‘So if that isn’t what happened, is it possible she arranged to meet someone and there was an accident or something else that meant she was unable to contact us?’

  Marcus sighed; all the London hospitals had been contacted and there was no one fitting Amy’s description involved in any accident or taken to A&E. He got up and started to pace the room as he threw out another possible scenario: Amy did have a boyfriend, perhaps one she knew neither of them would approve of, and she had like many other teenage runaways simply taken off with him.

  Lena was sceptical simply because she was certain that if Amy had met someone she would have known about it. They sat together and went through all the people they both knew, but it was obvious none of them could have been involved. Lena could think of no one, not even one of her employees, who appeared to be in any way connected to Amy. Added to that they were all female apart from the van drivers and delivery boys, but she was certain none had even met Amy. Marcus could think of no one, not even any of his girlfriends, as he was certain they had never had more than a few fleeting words with his daughter.

  ‘I had dinner at the awful Berkoffs’ last Saturday. Of course, they asked after you, and Sasha said he had seen you in a new restaurant in Chiswick,’ Lena remarked.

  ‘Well he must have been mistaken because I haven’t been in any new restaurant in Chiswick, seen him or Maria, and considering you always said you loathed the pair of them, why did you go over to their place for dinner?’

  ‘Because they asked me, but it was the same old putrid food and gossip, and she implied because I looked so good I had to have a toy boy – I mean honestly.’

  ‘Well you do look good, better than ever. You used to drag around in that awful old tracksuit, and you’d put on weight, hardly ever washed your hair or showered and spent all day in your office or—’

  She interrupted him, her lips tight. ‘Don’t start. I know how I looked and all I was doing was earning enough to pay the bills and you never could help out, one business after another went bust and I had to bail you out.’

  ‘All right, all right, don’t you start playing the old record.’

  ‘What about Simon Boatly?’ Lena asked, changing the subject.

  Marcus sighed. ‘By the time I moved into his flat he was packed and off on his photographic work abroad. He was also out of the country when Amy went missing. Listen, right now we are just attempting to bring up anyone that could be in any way connected. As far as I am concerned there is no one that I know that I could even contemplate as being over-friendly with Amy. I never saw her with anyone I didn’t know, and you say you would have been aware if she had a boyfriend – well then, so would I. This is all just circumstantial because bottom line is we have no clue to her knowing anyone that we were not aware of.’

  Lena nodded; she poured more wine for them both. ‘Apart from her school friends.’

  Marcus agreed, although he was not aware of any close friend, apart from Serena, and Amy had never mentioned anyone as a specific best friend. He recalled asking her shortly after she had started at boarding school if she had one. Amy had said there was no one special but she had made friends with all her classmates.

  ‘I never liked Serena, something about her – probably jealous,’ Lena remarked.

  ‘I should have shown more interest, but her reports were always brilliant and she appeared to be really enjoy boarding. I’ve never heard her complain about being sent there, and judging from all her reports she adjusted brilliantly from day one,’ Marcus said.

  Lena picked up the journal and suggested he read it again, and to not just concentrate on the pages relevant to him, but to read about certain pupils and teachers Amy disliked.

  ‘What if she was sort of compiling notes for a novel, something like that?’ Marcus asked as he flicked through the entries.

  ‘She never mentioned anything to me about writing one or even thinking of doing so and the people in the journal are real and not given character names.’

  Lena remained deep in thought as Marcus continued reading, watching him for a while, as he frowned and shook his head. ‘Christ, she doesn’t like anyone, does she? I mean some of this stuff is really vicious. And all these odd numbers and references to enemies –
I can’t read any more.’

  Lena put another log on the fire and stood with her back to it. He eventually shut the journal and stretched out on the sofa, closing his eyes.

  ‘According to you she’s never shown any signs of being unhappy or having trouble at school,’ she said. ‘It is the same for me, at no time has she ever discussed how she feels; she does often grow quiet, and she does spend a lot of time in her bedroom, but always says it’s to do her homework.’

  ‘Sometimes when she’s with me she works on her laptop, and yeah, she is sort of quiet, but there’s been nothing that’s ever alarmed me. If I do ask her about how she’s doing she always says that everything’s fine!’ He sighed.

  Lena felt her back becoming too warm from the fire and she returned to sit beside him on the sofa.

  ‘I think something did happen, and it could be connected to the school.’

  He stood up and stretched. ‘Well it’s possible, but you need to tell DI Reid your concerns. Get some sleep. We are in this together – whatever is going on, or has been going on between us, let’s put it to one side. I am sure we’ll find her, so you feel positive too.’

  She looked up into his handsome face and kissed his rough cheek. ‘You have a shave and wear a collar and tie with that nice brown tweed suit.’ He put a finger over her lips.

  ‘I’ll look smart, Lena. I really need a good night’s sleep – I’ve hardly slept the past few days.’

  After Marcus left the house, Lena didn’t bother washing the wine glasses or the soup bowls but left everything for Agnes to clear up in the morning. She put the fireguard round the still burning logs and made her way up the stairs, climbing them slowly, wishing she hadn’t let Reid take Amy’s old diaries. She worried Amy might have written about things that troubled her or nasty, disgusting stuff similar to what she’d poured out in the journal, constantly returning to focus on the horrible references to herself and ‘Daddy’.

  Forcing herself to go to her home office, Lena checked her phone messages and emails and was irritated by how many were from Gail at Kiddy Winks. She couldn’t be bothered to answer any of them and told herself she would sort things out in the morning.